In today's environment, smartphones and other devices are becoming more and more ubiquitous and more essential to users. Additionally, in fast-paced office environments, efficient use of meeting rooms and other physical resources is important. The process for booking or reserving a meeting room or other conference facility within a corporate environment can be a cumbersome process. The reservation process can involve sending an email message or calendar invitation to a particular person in charge of booking the resource, who might respond with whether the room is available during a requested window of time.
In other examples, an email message or calendar invitation must be sent to an email inbox that is created for the meeting room, and an automated process can determine whether the room is available and create a calendar entry for the room within a calendar or scheduling system. In either scenario, however, while there exists some degree of automation or convenience, the user must still interact with an email or calendar infrastructure and know the correct email address or meeting room identifier to which a reservation request must be sent.
Additionally, users in a corporate environment may walk up to a meeting room, see that the room is unoccupied, and begin using the room without reserving the room within a reservation or calendar system, only to be kicked out of the meeting room by another user who has reserved the meeting room. This can disrupt workflows and cause inefficiencies in a corporate environment.